LMC to hire machine for cleaning up Gomti

LUCKNOW: After spending two days in cleaning Gomti manually, LMC has been able to collect just about 4,500 metric tonnes of waste from the riverbed and banks. The removed trash is, however, just a miniscule part of the hyacinth and trash littering the river. As a last resort, LMC has now roped in a special cleaning machine to remove hyacinth from the river over the next 15 days. It is expected to arrive in city before June end.

The machine, 'Trash Skimming Boat', will be hired on rent from Kanpur for a month. The expensive machine has been deployed by the Centre in select cities of UP like Kanpur, Varanasi, Mathura, Garhmukteshwar under the 'National Mission for Clean Ganga' for cleaning the river. The machine floats on the river and plucks hyacinth from water.

In the last two days, LMC deployed over 8,000 workers to remove litter from around banks and the river. It deployed underwater divers and motorboats to remove hyacinth manually.

But the effort proved insufficient to clean the 12km stretch of the river from Gaughat to 1090 Crossing. Hence, LMC has now decided to complement the efforts of the santary workforce with the machine.